Amnesty slams US for executing mentally ill prisoners

Human rights group Amnesty International has published a report criticizing nations, including the United States, for allowing inmates with mental or intellectual disabilities to be executed — a violation of international standards, the group wrote.

The report, released on this year’s World Day against the Death Penalty, said nations that flout international law must reorient – if not outright abolish – capital punishment laws to protect vulnerable inmates.

Amnesty International, along with the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, said mentally-disabled or -ill prisoners sentenced to be executed may not have the mental capacity to “appreciate the unlawfulness or nature of his or her conduct, or capacity to control his or her conduct to conform to the requirements of law,” as stated by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.